Sewer Clown

Why so serious?

This  character was designed by our younger son for our still only hypothetical family webcomic. He recognized that we had a shortage of bad guys in the cast of characters. With a name like "Sewer Clown" and six arms, tentacles for legs and two multi-pronged tails, how could this guy not be creepy?

My son says that he had not heard of or seen the sewer occupying clown Pennywise from Stephen King's 1986 novel and subsequent TV miniseries "It."  I'm not entirely convinced that he wasn't exposed to a stray reference or image of King's sewer clown by his older brother who avidly and repeatedly watches YouTube videos like "The 100 best horror movie characters of all time." But maybe it's just that sewers and clowns go together so perfectly.

As you can see below, my son's original drawing is much better than mine. I was instructed to make the clown look realistic, because as my son told me, "That's your talent Mom, making things look more realistic."

I suspect realism isn't really the point with this guy.

Land Shark Vs. Space Pig

How to make a big mess over a long weekend:

One of the many joys of having two kids in two schools is that their time off does not always line up.  The younger one was at home today, both are off on Monday, and the older one is home on Tuesday.
Foolishly, I thought this would be a good time to start a project we've been talking about- making some cardboard and plaster sculptures of the characters for that web comic which we still haven't written yet. I thought maybe I could work with each child alone, as joint time in my studio tends to devolve into a play-fighting brawl. Each kid picked his favorite- Space Pig for the younger and the Land Shark for the older.

I tried to put the two characters together in a nondescript space on this napkin without much success.  My younger son told me that I had made the pig look scary and weird. The older son pointed out that I neglected to include the flaming chainsaws that the shark requires.

We did manage a little work on the sculpture today... It quickly became clear that my son was mostly interested in weapon design...and maybe this weapon he's building will be so cool that he cannot bear to see it plastered onto a pig sculpture and will have to keep it for himself... 

In the bottom picture, you can see that I made very little progress on Space Pig.  We spent a lot of time debating which way his joints should bend- whether they should be porcine-accurate or humanoid.

Space Pig

...not to be confused with "Pigs in Space"

This guy is another character for our hypothetical web comic.  I don't think my son has seen any of the Muppet classic "Piiiiigs.... iiin .....Spaaaaace" that was a staple of my childhood. Remember when The Muppets were one of only a very few offerings for prime time kids' programming?  My sons surely cannot imagine life without 24 hour access to video entertainment. Not that they are watching television in the middle of the night, or even very much during prime time. But I do remember being pleasantly surprised ten years ago to discover that "Dora the Explorer" was on at three in the morning to distract our then toddler son who was suffering with what he believed to be intolerable strep throat pain. Now we can assume everything is available all the time.

Speaking of 24 hour access, I would not be surprised if a bit of "pigs in space" exposure crept in via YouTube. This astronaut swine of course bears more resemblance to Halo than to that show.  My son insisted that he needed a complicated full head helmet....and to be wearing cool sunglasses when the helmet is off.

This was not one of my better efforts as far as spacesuit-design and limb-arrangement are concerned.  Here is the moment when I bring up the overused excuse that the drawing is on a napkin and looks pretty good considering....

Blobhead Guy

Don't let your head get so big that you can't stand up...

Our kids have an extensive collection of little plasticine characters that they have made for various stop-motion video projects.  These guys are in a pile in our living room, ready at any moment to make oil stains on that lovely bookcase that their father built.  Frequently, our younger son repurposes some of the clay for a new creation, and this pink blobheaded LEGO guy was last night's effort.

I am always pleased to have the opportunity to draw something that actually exists in our apartment and does not require extensive use of Google image search. Looking at the snapshot of the thing below, however, I still feel like I did not do it justice.  I prefer the proportion of giant head to body, the feeling of imbalance (even though it is really standing up) and the fact that you can see the whole "unicorn horn."

And I cannot explain why I thought it was a good idea to put him on a small island. I liked the idea of a big blob of pink oil clay, endangered in a pretty environment, sweating in the sun....but that doesn't really justify the situation.

Our son explained to me last night that this guy is, of course, yet another character for the web comic.  But he doesn't really do or say anything. He just appears in the background frequently.  And then, after the web comic has been running for a long time, we can ask readers to count all of his appearances and give a prize to those who get the right number. 

I am glad that the kid is planning so far ahead with his social media campaign. I guess we had better get started on this comic....

Suicide Owl

Cool Birds Don't Look at Explosions:

Suicide Owl is another character for our hypothetical family web comic that my younger son hatched during our long morning subway ride to school. I was not able to extract many details about this owl, besides the fact that he is a Barn Owl and wears bandoliers filled with bullets.

My older son has been very taken with the trailers for the upcoming movie "Suicide Squad," and has insisted that we watch it with him. I asked his younger brother whether perhaps this owl has some relationship to the Suicide Squad. He said no and seemed annoyed by my suggestion that the character might be derivative.

Lacking any other details or character information, I decided to put an explosion behind the owl, because, you know, everyone looks much cooler when backlit by an explosion. While idly googling for an appropriate explosion image, I tripped over the "Cool Guys Don't Look at Explosions" meme.  Think about the many scenes in  movies and TV where the badass guy (almost always a guy) walks calmly away from a fireball without looking back, flinching, or apparently, getting any shrapnel in the back. ( Buzzfeed has a compilation.)

And, like so many other things, I missed the point of origin for the title of the trope. The  "Cool Guys Don't Look at Explosions" song was performed by Andy Samberg(as Bruce Springstein), Will Ferrell (as Neil Diamond) and J.J. Abrams (as himself wearing a weird shirt) at the 2009 MTV movie awards and features many clips of of cool guys ignoring conflagrations if one is willing to sit through the video.

The Suicide Owl should be at least as cool as Wolverine, the Joker or Jason Bourne..... so his feathers probably won't catch on fire.

(We've had a few background explosions here on the napkins... although not as many as I thought. Perhaps I have missed a few.)

Dark Snowman

My younger son pointed out that we needed some bad guys for our web comic. He invented an evil, dark, non melting snowman.  I proposed that he should be made of the dirty snow that remains when a huge pile of snow melts in the city. I suppose that means he is mostly made of soot and car exhaust. 

Below is my son's far superior version of this fellow, drawn on the Number 2 train at 7:40 am.. 

Infant Ninja in Baby Bjorn Carrier

Even assassins need oral gratification:

While my younger son and I were discussing "The Infant Ninja," we agreed that he should be carried in a Baby Bjorn by a well-armed, deadly looking robot. And that he should have a teething toy that squirted poison gas.

I carried both of our kids in a sling (separately, not ever together, although that was often requested bu the then four year old elder brother) for years until the gel in my vertebrae squeezed out in several places.

But we were definitely not a Baby Bjorn family.  There seemed to me something slightly silly about the Bjorns.  The design was both vaguely bondage-like and awkwardly sporty.

I realize the complete idiocy of this opinion being expressed by a woman who owned a whole wardrobe of  slings. After 12 years of parenting failures, I certainly do not presume to judge anyone for practically anything... much less the use of a Bjorn.  For my compulsive baby-sling use, I can only offer the justification that we live in New York and I had to take the train with both kids, early and frequently.  In place of a stroller or a front facing Bjorn, the slings were a low profile way to keep strangers from touching the baby... or even breathing directly on him.

A robot with a baby in a sling didn't seem quite right to me when I started the drawing...although the more that I think about it, maybe a nice rainbow sling with rings on a killer robot would be more amusing...

I tried to combine the winsome qualities of the Terminator and the Iron Man/ War Machine suits: i.e., those scary red eye lights and the ridiculous-on-robots humanoid teeth, with the segmented suit with the shoulder mounted grenade launchers.  The result on the napkin was both creepy and a bit flat... but the robot is basically backdrop, so I decided not to sweat it too much.

At the last minute, I had to add a Sophie the Giraffe teething toy to the image...  We had one of these "mouth animals" during my first son's infancy.  I cannot remember who bought it. I knew at the time that it was a somewhat expensive and trendy article. Looking it up now, however, I discover that not only is it a remarkably pricey chew toy, it is the number one selling baby item on Amazon. During my organic-food-making, toxin-fearing, irrational mother of an infant stage, I was aware that Sophie was supposed to be a better, more healthful toy, made of "natural rubber" and "food paint" in France. Of course, subsequently there were rumors of carcinogens and a recall.

I do remember that our Sophie developed a nasty smell that seemed to squirt out from the interior when it was squeezed.  I cannot say whether it was from inherent vice, from exposure to my son's saliva, or just poor maintenance on my part,

But it now seems appropriate that the infant ninja's trendy mouth animal might squirt poison gas.

Infant Ninja with Motorcycle Car Seat

 Death comes out of a Graco car seat:

My younger son and I have a new daily school commute to the upper west side of Manhattan.  Unfortunately, much of the time is spent standing up, packed into one or the other of the two subway trains involved.  This is a particularly unpleasant situation if one is, say, the size of an 8 year old, and not accustomed to a New York City subway rush hour. (It seems to be rush hour even at 7 am) I've been doing my best to offer distractions, but so far he has spurned my offerings of music and books.

He has been amenable, however,  to passing the time by discussing our much talked about, but still as of yet, nonexistent, family web comic.  Axe Cop, the collaborative comic that was created by a 5 year old and his much older comic book industry professional brother is of course an inspiration.  My sons are good at coming up with wacky characters, but they have yet to develop any plot for this comic.  The younger one suggested on the train last week that perhaps there should not one story, but instead a series of related shorts.  That sounded more manageable...but we still need some sort of plot.

Last week on the train, he also hatched the idea of "The Baby Ninja." I suggested maybe it could be "The Infant Ninja."  We discussed what sort of infant accessories this ninja might have... throwing star teethers, a car seat that affixes to a motorcycle, a pacifier that doubles as a face mask. It seems also to be quite inspired by Dr McNinja, another webcomic that my sons really enjoy.

Of course, my sons expect me to do all the drawing of this comic....

Karate Unicorn

The kids were very taken with "101 Ways to Kill a Zombie" by Robb Perlman, with humorous illustrations by Dave Urban. The book features a skewering-by-unicorn-horn right on the cover, in addition to other virtuoso demises by things like "hot dog eating contest," "password reset," or "Axe Body Spray."

Ansel was inspired to describe another character for our still mostly nonexistent family webcomic: The Karate Unicorn.  

While the idea in its pure form was pretty amusing, and I'm sure Dave Urban could have run with it successfully, I had trouble coming up with a good image...well, a good image that could be pulled out of a lunchbox at a 2nd grade Quaker school anyway. 

I asked Ansel, "If a human demonstration of karate involved breaking boards, what does a unicorn break?" He provided the obvious answer: "Zombies." While the idea of a unicorn cleaving a stack of the undead in half was potentially funny, it seemed a bit much for lunch with 7 year olds. A stack of rainbow colored boards, however, was definitely not an inspired solution.

I was also unnecessarily distracted by the issue of anatomically correct horse drawing. Afflicted in my youth by a particularly acute case of preadolescent female equine obsession, I spent many years perfecting my drawing of various horse body parts. I recall making several drawings of unicorns also...and I fear there were more than I can now remember...

At any rate, last night I suddenly felt a bizarre compulsion to try to draw this horselike thing in an accurate and sophisticated way. My subsequent failure at equine draftsman grandstanding certainly did nothing to help the humor of the image. And I added a indeterminate purplish background.  My excuse was that if you google "unicorn," you do see a remarkable amount of purple...skies, mountains, water, haze, etc.

Unfortunately the results here are not particularly ironic or otherwise funny. Instead it looks frighteningly like something I might have drawn while I was a horse obsessed tween.....Sorry Ansel.

(Meanwhile, we are eagerly awaiting the sequel, "101 Ways to Use a Unicorn")

Poultry Carcass Man

While my sons think themselves too old for Dav Pilkey's magnum opus, "Captain Underpants," they are always happy to revisit his "Dumb Bunnies" series. The Dumb Bunnies are, as you might imagine, a family of comically stupid anthropomorphic rabbits. Dad wears tightie whities, Mom's in a bra, the baby is either picking his nose, wearing his shoes on his head, or driving the family car off a cliff. Sublime stuff as far as Archer and Ansel are concerned. (Note to Mr. Pilkey: My children would force me to buy an infinite number of "Dumb Bunnies" books, should you ever deign to publish more.)

In "The Dumb Bunnies' Easter," the family performs a toxic mash-up of all the major holidays: nailing valentines to the window, painting fried "Easter" eggs with cans of black spray paint, and most relevantly, "carving" the turkey like a Halloween pumpkin. (You were perhaps wondering how the Dumb Bunnies could possibly be related to this image?)

Ansel really likes the creepy poultry jack o lantern, and suggested it should be yet another web comic character. In his scenario, the carcass is like the "headcrab" from the video game "Half-Life": a parasitic intelligence that affixes itself to a human host and then assumes control of the body.

I was thinking it could be a situation like that of the DC comics' character Doctor Fate, where putting on the helmet grants one super powers at the expense of independence. I hoped this might put a slightly more positive spin on the idea of possession by roast fowl.

Skull Pinata Head Guy

Ansel is developing a real taste for the macabre.  He spent the hour before bedtime last night wearing a skull head pinata (from last year's birthday party) with various drapery, trying to transform himself into a "jump scare."  When he finished wearing the head, he carefully composed it on the couch (note the placement of the tv remotes- even death's heads need their media) for maximum shock value for his brother in the early morning.

He decided that this skull guy really should be a character in our ever developing- yet still nonexistent- web comic.  I really liked the idea of a creepy individual who wears an old pinata on his head, but I suspected that Ansel had a literal skull in mind.  I tried to split the difference in the drawing.  There is some suggestion that it's a pinata, but Ansel still thought it was cool and not silly.

The main horror of this skull guy's visit last night was that he left little scraps of white tissue paper strewn all over the apartment.

 

Baby Legs Kowalski

Too Weird for School:

The kids were pretty pleased with the Land Shark, so Ansel came up with another character for the yet to be drawn, or plotted for that matter, web comic. Both kids almost always prefer recognizable characters on their napkins to something homegrown, but the web comic idea sometimes encourages an occasional exception.

Every comic needs a muscular guy, right?  I think Ansel was trying to make him funny by gifting him with the legs of an infant.  But the guy had to be wearing jeans so that he would still be a cool.  I had suggested something cute and short in order to show off his infant legs, but Ansel wasn't having any.  (A side note: neither of my sons has worn a regular pair of jeans, ever.  And not for lack of trying on their parents' part. Why wear jeans when you can wear pajamas, or at least sweatpants?  Coolness only goes so far, apparently)

Both kids stared blankly at the napkin this morning, apparently dumbfounded by its weirdness.
Ansel took a "Attack on Titan" napkin from the summer instead.

Land Shark

Inspired by "Sharknado," "Axe Cop," "Chicken Little," SNL and a trip to Costco:

Archer and Ansel have talking a lot recently about a web comic that they would like to create...(to be specific: a web comic that they would like me to draw)  Axe Cop, a very successful series written by a 5 year old boy and drawn and facilitated by his comics professional older brother is of course a great inspiration.

We often discuss potential characters for this hypothetical comic and the Land Shark was yesterday's topic.  ("Sharknado" has a long tail, so to speak)  Archer was primarily responsible for the description, including rocket boosters, laser weapons  and a "chainsaw holster."  Fish Out of Water, our favorite character from "Chicken Little"  (originally one of our early favorite books by Helen Palmer) inspired the helmet.

I'll admit I was much more interested in the ridiculousness of the character than the kids were.  The Saturday Night Live Land Shark sketches from the late 70's were in my mind.  I recounted them to the kids, but they did not find my rendition as funny as I thought they should.  And I liked the idea of the alpha predator riding around on the sort of motorized scooter that enables the morbidly obese to navigate around Costco.  I am slightly sorry that I  did not try to render the distortion of a water filled helmet in a realistic way... because, you know, the overall image is so very  realistic.

And Archer pointed out that I had neglected to include the laser weapons.